Known tools for arthroscopic surgery include the type in which a powered handpiece is actuable to rotatably drive a tool chucked therein. One type of arthroscopic tool comprises a hollow housing to be fixedly chucked in a handpiece and having a driven member rotatably supported therein. The driven member has a rear end portion engaged and rotatably driven by a motor in the handpiece. In one such apparatus marketed by the Assignee of the present invention, the handpiece was provided with a chuck having a six-sided (hexagonal cross section) collet body for receiving a corresponding six-sided tool housing in any one of six alternatively selectable angular positions. In addition, the rear end portion of the inner, driven member of the tool was provided with six rear opening notches circumferentially spaced by six rear extending fingers. The fingers were provided with blunt rear ends angled at about 30.degree. or less to the radial plane of the tool. The purpose was to assist guiding a diametral drive pin of the drive motor in the handpiece into a diametrally opposed pair of the rear opening notches, during loading of the tool into the handpiece. By this structure, it was intended that tools be readily loaded into and unloaded from a handpiece, to facilitate changing of tools, i.e., from one type tool to another, during the course of a surgical procedure.
However, Applicant has found under the adverse conditions sometimes found in surgery (for example, the need to focus on the surgical procedure itself rather than on loading tools in a handpiece, and the presence of irrigation and patient body liquids on tools and handpiece which may render either or both slippery), that personnel may occasionally find that insertion of a surgical tool into its handpiece is not as quick and easy as expected.
Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide an improved tool and handpiece of the aforementioned type which provides for smoother and easier loading of a tool into the handpiece even under the most adverse conditions encountered during difficult surgical procedures.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide a new tool which will fit in a corresponding new handpiece, and will also fit in the prior handpiece marketed by the Assignee of the present invention with greater ease than the prior tool.
It is a further object of the invention to provide an improved tool and handpiece without significant increase in cost over the prior tool and handpiece and wherein the improved tool loads into either the prior or the new handpiece in the same manner (as a result of the same operator actions) as did the old tool into the old handpiece, and in which surgical personnel familiar with the old tool and handpiece can readily load the improved tool into either handpiece without further training or instruction.
Further objects and purposes of the invention will be apparent to those persons familiar with apparatus of this general type upon reading the following specification and inspecting the accompanying drawings.